The work this weekend is to break the wire. Odalate Naiteke.
It’s a phrase Operation Odalate Naiteke curator and researcher Nashilongweshipwe Mushaandja dusts off from the migrant labourers’ resistance archive and deploys as the name of a series of radical happenings and interventions taking place primarily in Katutura over the next two weeks.
Last weekend, the interventions opened with Tuli Mekondjo and Hafeni Muzanima’s ‘Limbadungila’ urging a return to ‘cultural-spirituality’ discarded in the throes of urban migration and Ten Ten’s exploration of the sound of Katutura in 1971 at the Katutura Community Arts Centre.
Today, the work continues in the space between the National Art Gallery and the National Theatre of Namibia where JuliArt’s ‘I Am Human’ intends to confront the white gaze, disparaging its obsessive violence towards black and queer bodies while calling for decolonial thought in the historically white institutions towering above her piece.
JuliArt’s work like most of Operation Odalate Naiteke’s offerings are free, public, urgent, radical and concerned with breaking through borders.
“Odalate Naiteke means ‘the fence/wire must break’ – a slogan used by the contract workers’ protest in 1971. The idea is to crush all kinds of borders, the economic, the gender, the cultural, the spatial, the political,” says Mushaandja.
“Windhoek and Namibia at large is historically defined by heavy and violent bordering. We wish to remind ourselves and the public that the road towards love requires unapologetic and radical openness.”
Describing the colour of the interventions as not just “unsettling and disruptive” but also “suggestive and love-oriented”, Mushaandja adds that much of the work is involved with transforming the country’s pervasive domestic and systemic violence into healing, cleansing and a return to indigenous roots.
“Odalate Naiteke 2020 is a loud message to the state violence of Operation Kalahari, we will overcome this shit,” says Mushaandja before commenting on those who do not consume or seek to understand art, history and politics beyond what is presented in the central business district’s ivory towers.
“Operation Odalate Naiteke is not for this kind of public. We are not interested in bringing the elite, high-life culture public to Katutura. This intervention is for the Katutura-based public,” he says and clarifies that while location is important, the intervention’s work is about the critical consciousness and the discussions these pieces will ultimately mobilise.
“Katutura is our everyday lived experience. It is the radical archive and activism of Katutura that is critically useful here… These are not just artworks, they are political projects that speak back to the rotten social fabric.”
Intent on occupying and activating spaces, summoning dreams and foreseeing the future of oppressed bodies, Operation Odalate Naiteke has been running since 18 January and continues today with JuliArt and tomorrow with The Decolonizing Space Group’s ‘Illegal Talks’ at UN Plaza, performances by Lamek Ndjaba, Maspara Pantsula, Lovisa the Superstar and live-painting by Trianus Nakale at the car wash behind the kapana area at Single Quarters. Ouma Paulina Hangar will also tell the story of the old location and kapana histories in Shanghai Street (opposite kapana) at 14h00.
Operation Odalate Naiteke will close its second edition with Neige Moongo’s gender-based violence-centered ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It’ and Nesindano Namises’ multidisciplinary ‘[theKhoest]’ exploring black women’s narratives and featuring Nikhita Winkler at the Katutura Community Arts Centre next weekend.
“These creatives are all freedom fighters,” says Mushaandja of the talent who will be blurring the lines between the streets and the stage, the audience and performers, the artist and the activist over the next two weeks.
“The audiences are expected to do the work by joining the freedom train.”
Operation Odalate Naiteke is on until 31 January. Find the complete programme on social media.
Email oudanawaafrika@gmail.com for more information.
All events are free of charge.
– martha@namibian.com.na; Martha Mukaiwa on Twitter and Instagram; marthamukaiwa.com
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